Five minutes on ART — the new Android runtime

There are lots of questions floating around regarding ART — the new experimental runtime that's included as a developer option in Android 4.4 KitKat. Anyone can enable it — just go to the developer settings.

ART is a new Android runtime being introduced experimentally in the 4.4 release. This is a preview of work in progress in KitKat that can be turned on in Settings > developer options. This is available for the purpose of obtaining early developer and partner feedback.

Will it make a difference to you as an end user? Maybe yes, maybe no — or maybe placebo? The short, short version? It's way early on this right now and most of us don't need to worry about it quite yet.